Scott Wittenburg - The May Day Murders

Sam looked over the documents. In his hand were copies of two consecutive pages of The 1970 Smithtown High School yearbook depicting a couple dozen graduating seniors’ headshots in alphabetical order, beginning with “Jamison” and ending with “Martin.”

Roger said, “Mancuso wants us to do a background check on all of these people-the males, that is. He wants to know where they are now, what they’re doing, and most importantly, if any of them have a police record. It was after he’d made this request that I mentioned the Marsha Bradley case, noting the uncanny similarities between her case and Sara Hunt’s. He was quite interested, to say the least.”

Sam looked over the individual names and accompanying pictures, silently counting up how many were males. “Nine guys,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, and I can account for five of them already. You probably can, too.”

“Let’s see… Tony Jamison, Bob Jones, Bill Kellerman, Dick Korns-they all still live in Smithtown,” Sam said.

“You forgot Harold Justice-he works at the Seven Eleven in Milford.”

“Didn’t know that.”

“So that leaves us with four guys that we might have to do a little digging up on,” Roger said. “Anyway, Mancuso admitted that the yearbook angle is a long shot and the odds are slim that any of these guys are linked in any way to Sara Hunt’s murder. But it’s definitely a good thing he followed up on it, as it turns out. Otherwise, he may have never found out about the Bradley murder, and we probably wouldn’t have learned out about Sara Hunt. Now we have two murder cases that are not only curiously similar to one another, but involve victims who we know for a fact had at one time been Smithtown residents.”

Sam’s eyes widened as this correlation suddenly sank in. “Jesus, Rog! There has to be a connection! Look at the odds-”

“Wait-it gets even more interesting,” Roger interrupted. “There was a lipstick mark on Sara Hunt’s left breast.”

Sam gasped. “No shit?”

“I shit you not. And a lipstick vial, presumably Sara’s, was found near her body. It looks as though the murderer started to write a little message and changed his mind for some reason or another. Maybe he had to make a sudden getaway.”

“What does this Mancuso think about all of this?”

“He just about lost it when I told him about Marsha and the lipstick message. He thinks there’s a very good chance that the same guy did them both in.”

“And what do you think?”

“Hell’s bells-I agree! But not quite 100%, though. There are a few things that don’t quite stack up.”

“Like?”

“For one thing, it just doesn’t seem feasible that it could be the same guy. New York City is over five hundred miles away. The murders took place only weeks from one another. Unless this guy had a perfect game plan devised, I don’t see how he could possibly pull off both murders so goddamn flawlessly in such a tight time frame. Furthermore, who ever killed Sara Hunt had beaten the mortal shit out of her. Mancuso told me she had bruises and contusions all over her body-excessive ‘excessive force’ was how he put it-much more than was needed for Sara’s assailant to have his way with her. It’s more than obvious that this bastard wanted her to suffer a helluva lot before murdering her. Marsha Bradley, on the other hand, had been virtually unharmed physically, with the exception of the marks left on her neck from strangulation. The killer’s M. O’s just don’t jibe.”

“But Marsha had been threatened into submission, we’ve more or less surmised. Because she feared for Tommy’s life,” Sam pointed out.

“You’re missing the point, Sam. Serial killers usually duplicate their M.O.’s quite faithfully, especially in sex crimes such as these. Sara’s murderer obviously wanted her to hurt-he deliberately tortured her before doing her in. Marsha’s assailant, however, was merciful in this regard. Had it been the same guy, Marsha most likely would have been beaten to a pulp, too.”

Sam grunted. “This sounds like some overpaid profiler’s pat theory, to me. I’m sure it isn’t carved in granite.”

“You’re right; there are exceptions to every rule. I’m just saying that there are some arguable discrepancies between the killer’s M.O. in each case. The similarities certainly outweigh them, though. And as I already told you, I think that the same guy probably murdered them both.”

Sam took a sip of coffee and said, “This is really scary. If it really is the same guy who killed Marsha and Sara, that puts a whole new perspective on everything.”

Roger’s expression turned grim. “Sure does. If this is indeed the case, it brings up the obvious question of why the murderer zeroed-in on these two particular ladies. In other words, what was his motive?”

“And who might be the next in line,” Sam added solemnly.

“Well, before we start pushing the panic button we need to confirm that the two murders were committed by the same person. Fortunately, that shouldn’t be hard to do. I’m having the lab send the hair and semen samples to Mancuso so he can have them compared to the samples he has. If the DNA’s match, we will have at least gotten that much established.”

“And in the meantime?” Sam asked.

“In the meantime we’re going to find out what these characters have been up to,” Roger replied, gesturing toward the copies of the yearbook Sam was holding.

Sam studied the faces again. Of the four graduates presumably not still living in Smithtown, he knew only two-and hadn’t seen either one of them since high school over twenty years ago. The other two didn’t look familiar at all and judging by the scholastic achievements listed under their pictures, which was zip, neither of them had apparently spent a whole lot of their time within the hallowed halls of Smithtown High.

“Are you going to question everyone here?” he asked Roger.

“Yeah, every single one of them-including the locals.”

“How will you track down the ones who aren’t still living in the area?”

“Well, first we’ll go over records at the post office and the courthouse. Check out change of address records, census reports, and so on. We’ll also enter their names in the computer and see what we come up with. If none of this pans out for someone in particular, we’ll try locating any of their friends and relatives who might still be living in town and go from there. We’ll find them all, eventually. I just hope it happens soon enough.” he added uneasily.

Sam nodded. Although he already knew the answer to his next question, he asked it anyway. “And what about the press?”

Roger shook his head. “Mum’s the word, still-the chief has already informed me.”

Sam groaned in protest. “Why?”

“For the same reasons as before,” he replied. “Listen, buddy. Thompson still doesn’t want to incite any unnecessary panic here. So far, we know nothing more than we did before except that two female Smithtown residents, one of which hasn’t lived here in two decades, have been raped and strangled to death in their homes. Everything else is pure conjecture. Why stir up the dirt now? But I promise you, the minute we find out who murdered Marsha Bradley, you can get them presses rolling. Fair enough?”

Sam didn’t like it, but at the same time had to agree that printing an article about the cases based on pure speculation wasn’t a good idea. Maybe in the New York Post or the Daily News it would float, but definitely not in the ultra-conservative, play-by-the rules Smithtown Observer. Which brought something else to mind. “How is the New York press dealing with Sara Hunt’s murder?” he inquired.

“From the way Mancuso spoke, there’s been little press coverage of the case. Apparently there’s been a bumper crop of murders in the Big Apple lately and the cops are under a lot of pressure, so they’re going with the attitude that they don’t have time to spare for press conferences when they could be out on the streets catching criminals instead. Evidently, it’s working.”